About us

Mission

To become the acknowledged champion of consumer empowerment by enacting laws and statutes to promote, protect and strengthen consumer rights towards satisfaction in the delivery of goods and services.

Vision

An empowered Filipino consumership who exercise their sectoral rights in enjoying full satisfaction in the consumption and utilization of goods and services in their daily lives.

Promoting Consumer Empowerment

Rationale

If there is but one, common denominator that binds and defines people into a single category – – then it is the bond of consumership because everyone is a consumer, either of goods or services. As consumers, people have that particular right to partake/avail of products which are of high quality and services with guaranteed reliability. However, at the rate the system is going, said right is usually overlooked if not taken for granted because consumers have no capacity to exercise nor demand such right. Such deprivation has to be fully addressed and resolved. This task falls squarely on the Party-list group 1-CARE, with its vision of charting a concrete, collective destiny for energy consumers and an end-view of ensuring empowerment for the people.

“The 1st Consumers Alliance for Rural Energy, Inc. or 1-CARE is a Party-list sector which seeks to protect, strengthen and promote the basic right of consumers to avail of quality products and reliable services.”

1-CARE encompasses consumers of energy in the form of utility services such as electricity, water, telephone, transportation as well as goods and commodities. Great in numbers and diversified though they maybe, consumers at large are often at the mercy of providers/suppliers, with almost no leverage as to their quest for quality but reasonably priced goods and services. Thus, the proverbial dictum “Caveat emptor” (“Let the buyer beware”) has no weight nor impact whatsoever as far as the right of a consumer to a just and equitable purchase is concerned since it is always the seller’s or provider’s decision to dispose of his product under his own condition and predilection which prevails. As it is, the saying “the customer is always right” remains an exercise in semantics but has no bearing in actual practice.

Thus, consumers are almost always relegated to the back seat insofar as issues on customer satisfaction are posed to those who control the direction of any flourishing business entity that entails product consumption or service utilization.

In short, consumers – – in such state of helplessness, are basically marginalized. This applies most especially to those living outside Metropolitan Manila – consumers from as far north as Batanes down south to Jolo. The rural or provincial consumers – they are the silent millions who partake of the amenities of energy (in its varied forms) day in and day out. They have no capacity to collectively bring out their grievances – no voice to sound off their complaints. It’s a pity that the consumer sector which greatly helps in propping up the national economy has nobody to turn to who will take up the cudgels for them so as to get their “fair and square” share of products and services they usually paid for.

1-CARE is born to champion the rights of consumers – – to enact necessary legislations that would ensure CONSUMER PROTECTION and EMPOWERMENT. It aims to resonate across the entire archipelago the resounding message of consumer power which in actuality, stands for power of the people.

Our Promise

About Us

The 1st Consumers Alliance for Rural Energy, Inc. or 1-CARE is a Party-list sector which seeks to protect, strengthen and promote the basic right of consumers to avail of quality products and reliable services.